Writing History in the Medieval Islamic World (Hardcover)

Hardcover. In the encyclopaedic fourteenth century, Arabic chronicles produced in Mamluk cities bore textual witness to both recent and bygone history, including that of the Fatimids (9691171CE). For in two centuries of rule over Egypt and North Africa, the Ismaili Fatimids had left few self-generated historiographical records. Instead, it fell to Ayyubid and Mamluk historians to represent the dynasty to posterity. This monograph sets out to explain how later historians preserved, interpreted and re-organised earlier textual sources.Mamluk historians engaged in a sophisticated archival practice within historiography, rather than uncritically reproducing earlier reports. In a new diplomatic edition, translation and analysis of Mamluk historian Ibn al-Furats account of late Fatimid rule in The History of Dynasties and Kings, a widely known but barely copied universal chronicle of Islamic history, Fozia Bora traces the survival of historiographical narratives from Fatimid Egypt. Through Ibn al-Furats text, Bora demonstrates archivality as the heuristic key to Mamluk historical writing.This book is essential for all scholars working on the written culture and history of the medieval Islamic world, and paves the way for a more nuanced reading of pre-modern Arabic chronicles and of the epistemic environment in which they were produced. In a modern world where sectarianism can take on violent forms, this is a rigorous historiographical demonstration of the unacknowledged broadmindedness of many medieval Arab historians. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…